Access Keys Skip to Menu Skip to Content Skip to Footer

1.0 Why Breastfeeding is Important

Exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months after birth is the reference, or normative model, against which all alternative feeding methods must be measured with regard to growth, health, development, and all other short- and long-term outcomes.1

Breastmilk is the natural first food for babies, with breastfeeding being the natural means of delivery of this food source. Breastmilk is the only single food that can meet ALL of the nutritional needs of a human for at least 6 months, and this is at a time when that human is growing at the fastest rate he will ever grow after birth.

Breastmilk has many ways to protect the infant's health. These include

What would you say?

A mother, pregnant with her second baby, says to you “I breastfed my first baby for 6 weeks then gave him infant formula. He's a beautiful, healthy little boy today. Is breastfeeding really worth all the effort it takes?

Breastmilk is impossible to replicate and infants who don't receive breastmilk cannot grow and develop to their potential. Read on to learn more about the uniqueness of breastmilk.

A kangaroo and her joey - There is no mammal species on earth, other than humans, that would trust the growth, development and health of their young to the milk of another species.

A kangaroo and her joey - There is no mammal species on earth, other than humans, that would trust the growth, development and health of their young to the milk of another species. .
Image © D.Fisher, IBCLC

Baby Friendly Initiative

The Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) was launched worldwide in 1991, with the goal being to accredit hospitals that apply the best-practice Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding.
To continue in the community the best practices initiated in the hospital situation UNICEF/BFI United Kingdom developed the Seven-point Plan for the Protection, Promotion and Support of Breastfeeding in Community Health Services which was subsequently modified and adopted in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Argentina and Italy.

The Baby Friendly Initiative 10 Steps for hospital facilities and the 7-Point Plan for community health centres are supported by the Innocenti Declaration, the World Health Organisation Code on the Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and the Global Strategy for Infant and Young Child Feeding.

The Steps and Points of the Baby Friendly Initiative are the practical 'how-to' guides to ensure clinical practice conforms with these international standards. Throughout this course you will be referring to these Steps and Points as they are applicable to your course.

Notes

  1. # AAP Policy Statement, Section on Breastfeeding (2005) Breastfeeding and the Use of Human Milk